


The Darkness Between Us

by madcap_allie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: Dark Rey, Dark Side Rey, F/M, Force Bond (Star Wars), Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-26
Updated: 2017-12-26
Packaged: 2019-02-22 03:36:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,387
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13158435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madcap_allie/pseuds/madcap_allie
Summary: Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi [Spoilers!]Flush with newfound purpose and determined as hell, Rey rushes to find Ben Solo, but she is far more similar to Kylo Ren than she knows.A one-shot on its own, and a prelude to a more complicated journey for Rey.





	The Darkness Between Us

Rey's heart was beating fast and strong, her breath calm and deep. If Chewbacca doubted her purpose, if he could perceive anything different in the way she moved or looked or spoke, he was keeping it to himself... but when Rey looked at the wookie, really _looked_ at him with all her attention, she knew he simply took her at her word. The Force has a strong influence, as the sacred text had said. Or perhaps the purpose that had overwhelmed her was so clear, Chewbacca simply accepted her abandonment of Luke Skywalker, _Master Jedi_ , to his empty existence in the abandoned temple, and took on her new goal of reclaiming Ben Solo for the Resistence as _fait acompli_.

She was angry, certainly. But there was more, so much more to it: a rush of a power in her that Rey could no longer deny. She was the wind that drove the sands in shifting dunes, she was the sun that seared the air from scavengers' lungs, she was one with the cold, bright center of the Force that would conquer Kylo Ren and bring Ben back to the Light. 

"There--," she pointed to a nameless spot on the charts in the middle of nowhere. "That's where they'll be, by the time we drop out of lightspeed." Chewbacca nodded, and quickly -- but gently -- brushed a juvenile Porg off the control pad and entered the coordinates. "Thanks. I'll leave you to make the jump without me..." she turned to go, but paused on the threshold of the cockpit and turned back. _Be gentle_ , she willed herself. _Betray nothing_.

"Chewbacca, if I'm not here 10 minutes before we arrive, can you send R2 to wake me?" She smiled at his assent, grateful he did not inquire as to whether she would actually be sleeping.

She couldn't possibly sleep. She had too much to do.

Back in the stateroom she'd claimed as her quarters -- what had been Han's -- she stood before the bed and undid her hair. A shiver of doubt trembled through her as the last tie fell to the floor. _When we touched, I knew_. She drew her lips together into a tight line and straightened her shoulders, firmly pushing the doubt away. _He must know it, too. I saw it in his eyes._

She closed her eyes tight, and drew still. The power in her thrummed faster than her heartbeat and deeper, but she held it in check, focused it on her core, where a thread caught and drew tight. And at the end of that thread--

Her eyes flashed opened, and there he was, lying on her bed asleep, his chest rising and falling softly with each precious breath. In his face, she saw what Luke had seen -- an innocent boy, vulnerable, weighted down by destiny. Leia's son. She stepped forward, her arm rising of its own accord. She acted on instinct, freed from the thoughts that had kept her trapped all these years. All that waiting and mindless patience had done nothing but hold her back. Another step, and another. And then she was standing over him, her fingers tracing the outlines of his face, his eyebrows, his cheeks, his full lips slightly parted--

"Ben," she whispered, letting the Force carry her words across the distance between them.

She jumped back when he startled awake, and they stared at each other, him propped up on his elbows, she standing over him and looking down, taking in his disheveled hair, the sheet slipping off his shoulders, baring his chest; His eyes wide, the dark hazel merely an echo of color around pupils so wide she could have fallen in -- and then, a heartbeat later, narrowing as he gained his bearings.

"So." His deep baritone echoed back to her, "You call me when you want me now."

"Yes," she answered. What was the point of dissembling now?

"Why?" He asked, and his tone said _curious_ , but _only just_. He was keeping himself cut off from her still. It infuriated her, but she quickly checked the uncurling in her stomach -- hope and anticipation, fading into impatience and anger -- she clamped down on it as she would a trap's tightened spring to set it in place.

"I'm coming to you." she answered, as matter-of-factly as she had before. "Now." Her loose hair fell forward over her shoulder, and she didn't bother to brush it away. Her purpose was clear.

His eyes darted left and right before settling back on her. Was there someone else with him? Did he think anyone could hear them, bound as tightly as they were by the Force? She relaxed as she watched him watching her, as she felt him feeling her -- sifting through her recent memories just like she, as a child, had felt the hot dry surface sand slip through her fingers, playing at finding treasure. She sighed and pulled him with her to the most recent, the most profound.

She heard his breath catch as he found it.

"You faced him," he whispered. His expression moved from surprise to worry. "Alone." And then to respect, "You fought him... you _drew your light saber_ against him." Her lips curled up into a ghost of a smile. 

Then his brows knit together, his expression turned to uncertainty. "But you didn't kill him." He sat up, drawing his legs under him, making room for her. "Why?"

She felt the edge of the bed and sat down to face him on his level, never dropping her gaze from his. _Oh Ben_ , she thought, _You can't even say his name_. "I didn't need to kill Luke. I have everything I need--" she leaned ever so slightly closer to him, trusting her instincts as the voice inside her guided.

"-- From him," Kylo finished for her.

She nodded. 

"But not from me?" Half a statement, half a question; not quite trusting enough to be an invitation.

When their fingers touched across the darkness that divided them, she'd felt it, as clearly as if he'd been sitting with her in the same room, breathing the same air. Now she saw him falter, and the power singing through her showed how her quickly, how simply the gap could be bridged this time, now that she'd acknowledged it, embraced it, finally accepting it as the part of herself it had always been.

"Ben," she whispered his name, and brought her lips to his. _This._

_This_ , he answered, allowing her to kiss him, revealing the innocence, the vulnerability. She kissed him deeper, holding his face in her hands, willing him not to back away or close himself off, as he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer, so that she straddled his lap and her hair fell across his face.

He let go of her with one hand to brush her hair behind her ear, and pulled back just enough to focus on her eyes. She felt how much he wanted this; so why the sudden sadness? Why the fear licking at his nerves, adding a jangly tension on the thread that held them fast.

"My Master will not allow this." He let go, but she caught his hands and clasped them tight in hers, until he, too, tightened his grip on her. She could see the torment inside him, how in following the Dark ways of the Force he had been denying himself just as much as she had in her blindness and stupidity. _Now or never._

"Then he is not the master you need," she told him, willing him to believe her, even if just enough to be open to the possibility when she stood before him on his ship. She saw it again, the vulnerability, and let go of the thread that bound them even as she leaned in for a final kiss.

* * * * *

In his room, a whiff of spice and oil -- the scent of Ren of the desert, as he thought of her in his private moments -- faded into emptiness as her voice echoed in his mind. "You _will_ turn," she'd thought at the last, fiercely.

He stared at the space where she had been and shook his head slowly, raising his hand to where he'd touched her hair.

"You already have," he said to the empty air, knowing she wouldn't hear, knowing she wouldn't believe.

\---- _fin_ \----


End file.
